


the thing is (we're still here)

by Alice_not_in_Wonderland



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Questionable writing, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, This movie killed me, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, a hamilton reference or two because i have no self control, and suing for emotional damages, marvel killed us so we're making it better through fanfiction, more people but i don't feel like tagging, no but seriously spoilers if you haven't watched this movie scroll down, probably not spelled right but welp, questionable use of italics and parenthesis as well, what are these tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-05-03 19:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14576472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_not_in_Wonderland/pseuds/Alice_not_in_Wonderland
Summary: AVENGERS INFINITY WAR SPOILERSThe thing is, Thanos left half of the world still standing.(Because if we can't protect the earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it)He should've known better.





	1. stand back (watch it burn)

**Author's Note:**

> LAST WARNING INFINITY WAR SPOILERS

The thing is, Thanos left half of the world still standing.

_(Because if we can't protect the earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it)_

He should've known better.

\----

Tony arrives back on earth in a ship that's made of too many different metals to realistically function with a blue android by his side and dust on his hands. His knuckles are white from a small piece of metal that he clutches tightly to his chest, and nobody comments on the reddish-grey ash that is stored within it.

_(They all have vials of dust of their own, anyways, remnants of those that they could not leave behind.)_

Nobody comments, at all, the first couple days. Suspended in time, in reality, the 3.8 billion people that are left don't mourn as much as they freeze. Apathy sets onto them like a heavy fog. Funeral homes are booked well into the next year, but few people actually take the time to arrange something worth going to. Around the globe, the half that survived go through the motions, barely reacting to the holes that have suddenly been cut into their schedules. Earth's mightiest heroes recede into their rooms, hardly coming out, never talking. At night, they startle awake to the sounds of each other's screams.

When Steve Rogers and Tony Stark finally come face-to-face for the first time in years, Tony's too drunk to think and Steve's downing shots, wishing that he could do the same. Even after the end of the world, they're too stubborn to try and have a civil conversation at first, so they sit in the same room mutually pretending the other doesn't exist. It's hours before Tony looks up from where he's been sloppily typing on a StarkPad, a bitter smile on his face.

"E'rth's migh-mighties' h'roes m'ass."

Steve turns to face Tony, who has abandoned the glowing screen of the StarkPad, his head resting heavily in his hand as he leans on top of the counter. A part of him notes the unhealthy amount of empty bottles that surround them, the almost greasy look of Tony's hair and the stain on the collar, how despite his experience Tony seems barely coherent enough to speak more than a few words, but mostly he just downs another shot and listens.

"C-couldn' ev'n pro-protect 'im. M'Iro-Iron Man, I shoulda-"

He breaks off midsentence, and there's an almost imperceptible shudder in his shoulders as he reaches for another glass. Steve doesn't understand exactly who Tony lost, but he knows that he left with a wizard and a kid _(Spiderman, he thinks)_ and came back alone.

Steve Rogers understands alone.

For a moment, they sit in silence. Tony doesn't drink the glass, just stares at the rippling liquid like if he watches hard enough, he'll find all the answers he is looking for.

"H-he didn' wanna go."

The comment is quiet, but Steve has superhearing, and the room is silent. The grief in Tony's eyes brings everything into sharp clarity for a moment, and all Steve can see is his best friend, is Bucky, toppling over into a plume of dust at his feet.

"But he did."

Tony's head snaps up harshly, and he meets Steve's eye from across the counter. They stay there, frozen, as if a single word will break the balance that they have somehow created, before Tony closes his eyes, slumping down with a bitter laugh that bears the grim echoes of defeat.

"Yea'. Bu' he d'd."

When he downs his drink, a tear falls down slowly from his eyes. Steve still doesn't comment, but they put their glasses down at about the same time, and the crystal tumblers bump against each other with a small plink. It's the closest thing to acceptance that they've had in a long time.

\---

Of all things, it's a college student that starts it all.

Her name is Maya. She goes to Columbia University, and had been at her little brother's birthday party in Ohio when she watched him crumble to dust in front of her. Now, she's one of the few that are left, the lucky 50% that survived, in a too quiet dorm with a cup of coffee by her side to keep the nightmares at bay. Her face has harsh shadows cast on it from the bright light of her screen, and she (and everybody) is still reeling from the knowledge that they can crumble to ash with the snap of a finger.

Somehow, the earth still turns. Time still passes, and their lives still go on. She opens a tab to twitter, trying not to look at the little dust-filled ziploc bag that she had set in the corner of her desk. She doesn't know why she does it, aside from the fact that there are some things she can't stop thinking, some things she couldn't forget.

 

And somehow, impossibly, the world listens.

Stories crop up across the country. In short, choppy sentences, the world paints a picture of its grief: lives have been lost, yes, but they will not let them be forgotten. From the ashes of the world that has burned down, from the remains of all that has crumbled to dust, a battle cry is formed.

Avenge them.

And though SHIELD is perhaps more dead than it has ever been, even though Fury and Hill and perhaps countless others have crumbled away, it's a call to assemble louder than they have ever heard before.

The world listens.

And in a compound, from underneath their grief, the Avengers listen too.

Tony's the first one to join in. _(Her name was Pepper. She color-coded her spreadsheets and was allergic to strawberries. #AvengeThem)_ And one by one, the others do too.

_(His name was James Buchanan Barnes, but he went by Bucky. He liked plums, and 80 years ago, in a game of poker, he won Captain America's shield. #AvengeThem.)_

_(Her name was Wanda Maximoff.)_

_(His name was Sam Wilson.)_

_(His name was T'challa. Her name was Gamora. His name was Peter Parker Spiderman.)_

_(Avenge them.)_

\---

Clint finds his way to them about a day after, clutching a toddler to his chest with a little girl beside him. His eyes are bloodshot, his clothes a wreck. Next to him, Lila holds onto his hand like a lifeline, and Nathaniel whimpers in his father's arms. His hearing aid dangles from his left ear, and Natasha moves her hand slowly in the air.

"Laura?"

His clenched fists and set jaw are more of an answer than she'll ever need, but she has to make sure, because they-Clint, all of them, they'd been the closest thing that she had to a family, the closest thing she had to home-

They'd never really been one for physical contact, but when they lock arms around each other, neither one is really willing to let go.

Tony, for the first time, isn't holed up in his workshop, but he's as much of a workaholic as ever; his fingers fly over a StarkPad _(from over his shoulder, Rhodey reads the names of hundreds and hundreds of protocols that he codes, unwilling to comment on how they'll never be needed, not anymore)_ as he downs another cup of coffee. Though it's been years since they've truly seen each other, it only takes seconds for Clint to take in the empty cups and dark bags under his eyes and figure out how much sleep Tony's got, and Tony's already pulling up old blueprints as he types, bringing up designs for better arrows and more efficient hearing aids without a word.

They don't talk. Natasha leaves, at some point, taking Lila with her _(Aunt Nat, where-where's Cooper, I haven't seen him, and Mom, and Dad won't tell me anything, are they alright, please Aunt Nat, why can't anybody tell me)_ and Clint's cradling his son's head to his chest, holding on tightly as if to remind him that he's still there. They don't talk, because there's hardly anything for them to say, hardly anything that they can say when the rug has been pulled under their feet once again. The familiarity of it all aches within them, because though everything seems the same, it only takes another look to see all that's different _(there's an AP chemistry textbook in the corner flipped open to a page on stoichiometry, heels tucked next to the couch that are too tall and too bright to be Nat's)_ , and there's too much to say but too little that matters.

_(They look up at the same time, at some point, and they have the same unrestrained grief in their eyes from losing someone far, far too soon.)_

\---

The thing about humanity is that it self-destructs.

Humans argue; they fight; they kill. Despite the big brains and supposedly advanced emotions, everybody knows that people suck at working together. They are just too prone to finding surface details to disagree on, to allowing anger or frustration take the wheel. War, genocide, they're all just indications of all the ways that people have failed to put aside their differences and act civil.

The other thing about humanity is that humans are stubborn as fuck.

Somehow, the worldwide destruction does what decades of negotiations and treaties could not. How can you rage about other people because of the color of their skin, be divided by imaginary lines in the sand, when friends and family have suddenly disappeared worldwide? How can petty grudges and biases come close as to even hold a candle to the sheer grief that has suddenly settled over the earth?

_(Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes)_

For the first time in millennia, perhaps even forever, humans unite. Though on a small scale, disputes and problems still occur, most of the winners of the shittiest coin toss in history put aside their differences. Over the dust and ashes of what had been family they bond, allowing the grief that claws at their lungs to erupt in a movement that sweeps away the world. People wear small glass bottles of ash around their necks, sharpen their nails into claws. For every "they deserved better" a matching cry of "avenge them" punches back.

_(Thanos may have wiped 3.8 billion people away, but there are 3.8 billion still standing. )_

The thing about humanity is that it has nothing left to lose.

\---

It's Rhodey, of all people, that talks to Steve.

The colonel finds him in the communal living room sketching to soft classical music that FRIDAY was playing in the background. The compound was still asleep, but decades of working with Tony and his time in the military had messed up Rhodey's sleep schedule to nigh impossible levels, so he's up at the buttcrack of dawn, sipping coffee, while Captain Stripes and Stars sat on the couch looking like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in two weeks.

To be fair, it isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to him.

From his position at the side of the room where it joins the kitchen, he can see most of the area around him. Pachelbel's Canon in D begins to play over the speakers, the soft crooning notes easing the tension in his shoulders. Rhodey looks over to Steve's sketchbook, and he can see the vague outlines of the captain and Bucky, smiling with their arms draped over each other.

"Tell me about him."

Steve's head turns towards him in one sharp motion, and Rhodey bites back a flinch; he hadn't realized how absorbed the captain had been in his work. He eases himself back into a more relaxed position, thankful for the experience that he has dealing with emotionally constipated assholes that are too stubborn and unwilling to talk about their problems for their own good. Steve looks confused, for a moment, but understanding dawns on him after a few seconds and he slumps back against the couch.

"Back-before, the serum I mean, I was a skinny kid." His eyes glaze over as the memories play out in his head, and Rhodey takes a moment to walk a little closer, settling into a chair across the room. "Never knew when to back down. Buck, he met me after I tried fighting a kid three times my size and ended up thrown in a dumpster." It isn't quite a smile that appears on his face, but his lip twitches upwards and it's the closest thing to happiness that Rhodey's seen from him in years.

They stay there for hours. Rhodey has more than enough experience with rambling superheroes, so he settles into the couch and listens to stories about the side of Steve Rogers that the world never truly go to see. Underneath his hand, rough images bloom of a skinny kid from Brooklyn as Steve drew, still talking, only stopping to erase and go back to the shape of eyes and the slope of shoulders that he has committed to memory. Behind them, Natasha pauses in her retrieval of Goldfish crackers for Nathaniel to listen, just for a second; Tony lets the FRIDAY have the surveillance cameras with audio play as he tinkers aimlessly in the workshop.

"Hey Steve?"

It's almost noon, and the sun shines gold through the windows of the compound. Steve's eyes look brighter, one part from the light, one part from the memories, and Rhodey smiles weakly.

"Siberia - I don't know what happened there, and I really can't, well, forgive you yet, for Tony, but Rogers? If you need someone, anyone - I'm here."

It's an olive branch, an attempt to start to stitch up the gaping hole that the accords had carved between the team. Scraped open and raw, the bridge stings, but for the first time in years they begin to heal.

"Same here, Colonel. "

\---

"Who's Peter?"

Tony stopped in the middle of increasing the durability of his suit, making it more resistant to blunt force and penetrating trauma to turn to Shuri, all too aware of his heart hammering in his chest.

He's in Wakanda, and any other time he would probably be awed by the sheer complexity of the technology that surrounds him. A good amount of it manages to go over his head, courtesy of the genius teenager that he's working next to, but both of them stay silent. It's almost unnerving, how quiet the lab is save for the whirring of machines and tapping of fingers on keyboards, but neither of them really make an effort to break the silence. When they do speak, it's in clipped, careful sentences, as if too much noise will send reality crashing at their feet. He curses under his breath as he realizes that he dropped a tool onto the ground in his shock, and scrambles to pick it up from the ground. Shuri looks on at him in embarrassment, awkwardly drumming her fingers on the table.

"I mean-well, you called me Peter a couple times, sorry, I should've known-"

"No, it's ok. You startled me, that's all."

"Did he-um, y'know,"

"Yeah."

Silence wraps around them once more, and he blinks back the tears that have suddenly filled his vision. Thankfully, she doesn't press, and returns to coding something (he thinks it's some sort of energy redirector), and he goes back to refining the gauntlet, his eyes lingering a little too long on the Iron Spider files that he couldn't bear to close.

_(And this suit is ridiculously intuitive, by the way. So if anything, it's kind of your fault that I'm here.)_

They both can't say it. He'd laugh at the irony any other time, about two of the smartest people in the world unable to deal with something as primal and unsophisticated as emotions, but there's too much on his mind _(idon'tfeelsogoodidon'twannagoidon'twannagomrstarkplease)_ for him to fall back even on his usual brand of cynical humor. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Shuri stop in the middle of her work to open up a picture, staring at the smiling face of the former king of Wakanda, a wounded whimper leaving her lips before she can push it down.

"He was your brother, right?"

She looks up at him, and there's a sort of grim determination in the crease between her eyes. "Yeah, he was." He can see her hand shaking at her side, but her eyes are dry. He admires her resolve. "And Peter?"

_My kid._ "He was my…intern."

The quiet is back again, suffocating him, reminding him of the excited chatter full of dumb sound effects and music toned down for enhanced hearing that he'd never get to hear again. Taking a shuddery breath, he hardens his emotions back to steel _(Stark men are made of iron)_ and lets the mind-numbing familiarity of the tools in his hand wash over him until he stops thinking.

It takes him another ten minutes to realize that Shuri was staring at him with a strange look in her eye. He bristles, shoulders tensing reflexively, and she bites her lip, blood rushing to her face. "What?"

"It's just…you cared a lot for him, didn't you?"

_(and if you die, I feel like that's on me.)_

"Yeah." A breath. "I did."

\---

It's 3:00 am, and Natasha is awake.

Her face is impassive as she gently cards her fingers through Nathaniel's hair. He's curled into a ball, asleep, in her lap, and beside him Lila's serenading a soft, but heartfelt rendition of "I See The Light" while Clint stares at the ceiling. Tangled plays on the screen in front of them, courtesy of FRIDAY, and she watches the golden-haired girl half-heartedly in the dark room.

Lila's still transfixed on the screen, so she leans back into the couch, tapping quietly into the leather cushions. Clint's eyes flick up towards her, and she lifts up a hand to sign, trying to jostle Nathaniel as little as possible.

"You should sleep."

He raises an eyebrow at her, and she wonders if he'd respond at all; for all that has happened, they still know each other better than anybody else. Years of working together, of having each other's back against the world, it only takes him a look to say all that's on his mind. He decides to humor her tonight, flicking his hand almost dismissively at her.

"You too."

They turn back to the screen at the same time, eyes blank as Rapunzel confronts Gothel on screen. She notices absently that Steve has walked into the room, standing awkwardly in the door way. Neither of them make any move to go to bed, only easing further into a thoughtless monotony as the night progresses. It's unspoken, but they all know that nobody's going to sleep tonight.

_(Mommy, please, mom come back mommy Cooper please come back)_

Lila looks up at her, and her face is marred with twin tear tracks that haven't quite faded. Wrapped in a large blanket, she looks so small, and Natasha smiles at her _(it's a mission-smile, not a real one, but she's lost too much to find anything real to hold onto)_. She pauses, her little hands twisting the blanket in front of her, before softly speaking with a slight wobble in her lips.

"Aunt Nat? It-it'll all be ok, right?"

"Don't worry, Lila," Steve answers for her, being all of the stability and righteousness and assurance that she can't. "It'll be alright."

Lila, somehow, isn't satisfied, because she tugs on Natasha's sleeve with a pleading look in her eyes. "Promise?"

_(The thing is, Natasha doesn't make promises. They're too fixed, too sure. A promise doesn't leave room for the lies and half-truths that she's known to spin; a promise doesn't make allowances for the thousands of divergences and possibilities that life can bring. Promises don’t allow for loss, for grief, for mourning.)_

She smiles at Lila, pushing the little girl's hair behind her ear. "Promise."

\---

It takes a month before a supervillain tries to take over New York.

To be fair, it is nothing that they hadn't expected. The world is vulnerable in its post-Thanos shape, and it was only a matter of time before an unstable superhuman with a superiority complex tried to take advantage of that. When the familiar alarm blared over FRIDAY, they suit up and fly out to meet the threat with hardly a word; the banter and pre-battle arguments are virtually nonexistent. There's a sort of resigned acceptance in the way that they look at each other, all half-nods bearing more professional courtesy than that of a team.

The supervillain in question is another one that was going with robots; ten-foot-tall metal humanoids wreak havoc on the streets. Above them all sits a similar drone, only this one is five times its size with speakers blaring out terms of surrender in a tinny, scratchy voice.

They ease into their positions easily, taking down the drones with an almost unusual efficiency. The comms are silent save for a command or warning here and there, and in all the operation is cleared in less than an hour. In the end, the only complications arose with civilians that refused to leave, baring their teeth at the robots and hitting them with umbrellas and even baseball bats. Most attempts to get them to leave ended with relative failure; their stern words of warning were only met with incredulous stares or complete and total ignorance.

_(The message is clear: they were tired of standing around, of being the damsels to be rescued. They were tired of doing nothing.)_

They stagger to a pizza place a couple blocks from the compound, too tired to deal with making lunch. Sitting back in little plastic red chairs in the corner of the shop, Steve looks over a slice of pepperoni to address the team.

"Good work out there."

An awkward silence follows, as they are reminded once again of the rifts that haven't quite healed up, before Tony raises his slice up with a small smirk on his face. "Thanks, Cap."

_(Later, Clint's on the ground with cheese all over his face, the table on its side as Nat picks at her nails with a small knife. Steve's sniggering to himself as Rhodes sighs, Tony reacting to the impromptu food fight with his usual snark. Thor's booming laughter fills the air. They're all still broken, but somehow, they're also just a little bit closer to home.)_


	2. we'll make it right (for you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"We're in the end game."_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> It's unsaid, as things often are these days, but the shaking hand by his side and the gauntlet that crawls up his arm tell more than enough. The team is restless around him, Natasha pacing from one side of the ship to the other, sparks snapping around Thor's shoulders as he idly runs his finger over the edge of his axe. There are hushed murmurs as Steve goes over strategy with Rhodes, the tension thick and heavy in the air.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _(They can't lose, because they have nothing left.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! I finished it!!
> 
> it only took me like four months
> 
> ...whoops?

A year later, they take down Thanos.

 

It's a year of nightmares, of grief, of mourning. It's a year of tears that they can't stop, a year of anger with nowhere to go but broken furniture and flying fists. It's a year of losing everything.

 

But at the same time, it's a year of getting everything back.

 

All at once, the world decides that it has been resting solely on the backs of Avengers for far too long, because there are innovations and technology start flooding in as scientists across the globe begin an initiative to prevent any further alien invasions on earth. They help go over battle plans, fire in their eyes as they pledge in one breath to protect what was left with all they had. Children send them cards with sloppy crayon drawings; the SI inbox explodes with stories of grief, and yet ones of hope.

 

The Avengers, as broken as they are,  begin to find their place again. Between breaths, they sing along sloppily as Disney movies play on the television, popcorn getting stuck in the cracks between couch cushions until they all fall asleep, one on top of the other in a giant heap in the living room. Between breaths, they wake up the other half of the team with a fire alarm that blares shrilly into the night, looking sheepishly in the midst of smoke that makes lazy circles in the air as DUM-E waves around in the ruined remains of what could've once been called a cake. Between breaths, Thor gives more of his real smiles, the ones that manage to light up the entire room, and when Steve is gesturing emphatically about the newest attempt to take over the world Tony doesn't flinch. There are whoopie cushions and glitter bombs hidden around the compound, and they train with quips falling from their lips with every step danced out of the way.

 

_(From the ashes of a destroyed world, they create a family.)_

 

When they arrive on the ship, there's determination raging in their eyes, etched in the lines that carve across their face from being at the front of the battle far too many times. They speed past the stars, and Tony's lips are pressed into a tight line as they watch them pass.

 

_"We're in the end game."_

 

It's unsaid, as things often are these days, but the shaking hand by his side and the gauntlet that crawls up his arm tell more than enough. The team is restless around him, Natasha pacing from one side of the ship to the other, sparks snapping around Thor's shoulders as he idly runs his finger over the edge of his axe. There are hushed murmurs as Steve goes over strategy with Rhodes, the tension thick and heavy in the air.

 

_(They can't lose, because they have nothing left.)_

 

They arrive on a beautiful planet with colors that seem so bright they burn the eyes. The water is too clear, the sky too blue, and when they reach out to touch the trees that tower beside them, for a moment, they crumble away to reveal bare rock. There are some things that even the Infinity Stones cannot do, some damage that even they cannot heal.

 

_(Thanos fancies himself a creator, a protector, but in the end, all he could truly do was destroy.)_

 

The gold of the gauntlet sears into their eyes when they find him. Under their footsteps, the grass flicks back to reddish grey, pulses of disturbance in the false serenity that surrounds them, and they blur into a charge against the titan.

 

_(You should've gone for the head.)_

 

Thor doesn't miss this time.

 

Without magic (read: freaky mind powers) their options are pretty limited, but Thor driving Stormbreaker into Thanos' skull is enough of a distraction for them to dive for the gauntlet. Around them, the illusions begin to flicker and die as dark alien creatures begin to close in around them. Tony grabs at the gauntlet as the others form a circle around the titan, fighting off the aliens as they approach.

 

It's all too familiar, the metal against his hands as Thanos struggles right next to him, but there's too much at stake so he just keeps pulling, keeps trying. Even as he watches, the wound begins to close, and Thor's struggling to hold the titan down as masses of black clamber over hillsides to surround them. He's losing hope when suddenly, the gauntlet gives and is free, golden and gleaming in his arms. Everything stops.

 

And Thanos begins to laugh.

 

"Bravo, bravo. You've made it farther than I thought." He pauses, rearing up to tower above them. "But what comes next, little one? You cannot wield the gauntlet. It'll only tear you apart." A cruel smile rips his face in two, and Tony pulls the gauntlet closer to his chest, hunching in on himself. _(He feels like a child with Howard leaning over him, his false comfort doing nothing to hide the cruel glint in his eye.)_ His tone is almost gentle. "What did you lose? Give me back the gauntlet, and I'll give them back. The boy, was it? You can have him. You can be happy."

 

His hands shake. The Infinity Stones reflect his face back to him, and it feels like they're taunting him - he knows, perhaps better than anyone, of his own mortality. He knows that he is only human, he knows what it is like to feel black closing in on you - to die.

 

_(Don't waste your life.)_

 

"No." He takes the gauntlet, watches as light scatters off it under the sun. "Not like that." He takes in the world _(he wishes that he could've seen the rest of his family before this, but for now, it's enough)_ , grimly satisfied by the flash of panicked anger that overtakes Thanos' face, before pulling the gauntlet over his hand.

 

_(Sorry, Pep. Wish we could've had that wedding.)_

 

Everything flashes to white.

 

\---

 

If there's anything Thanos got right, it was that humans weren't meant to wield such power.

 

Pain lances through him, information assaulting him as everything shifts, full of pent-up energy that has nowhere to go. Realities play out in the back of his eyelids, and he stamps down all of his desires and imperfection to try and take control. His arm screams at him, burning under the golden metal, and he grits his teeth and _pushes_ , holding himself together through sheer force of will alone. It is chaos, but Tony Stark was always chaotic, always a tightly wound ball of thought and action tangled in a messy web of anxiety, so he holds onto memories of the people that he has, that he had, and doesn't let the waves of pain and power sweep him away.

 

_Rhodey, staring down three upperclassmen with a look that would almost seem unimpressed save for his fist, clenched tightly at his side, taking in Tony's busted lip and black eye with a concerned furrow between his eyebrows. In their dorm, he sighs and takes out a pack of frozen peas, allowing the younger boy to ramble about some engineering project because he knows that it's what Tony does when he gets nervous. He falls asleep at some point, on the couch, and he wakes up under a thin blanket with a post-it note stuck on his forehead, Rhodey's neat, slanting print resting on the bridge of his nose._

 

_Pepper, her hair bright and eyes fiery (and so damn beautiful) in the dim lighting of the workshop, a disapproving look on her face as she quirks an eyebrow in his direction. FRIDAY greets her cheerily, and she pulls (another) cup of coffee from his hand and helps to guide him to their room. Even despite her annoyed ramblings and the innumerous times that she has to tug him forwards as he tries to stumble to work on some kind of project, her voice is fond as she brushes the hair from his face and has FRIDAY turn off the lights._

 

_Happy, wiping the sweat from his brow as he looks disapprovingly at Tony's smirking face, rolling his eyes back as he corrects his form (by God, Tony, how many times do I have to tell you this, you're off balance), passing him a water bottle with a rare smile. Later, they sit back in a heavily air-conditioned room, Tony snarking incessantly as Happy groans, putting on an air of trying to tune him out as Downtown Abbey plays in the background._

 

_Peter, (his kid, goddammit his amazing genius dorky self-sacrificing **good** kid) stumbling in with bright brown Bambi eyes, hair light brown and sticking up in all directions as he goofily smiles with an oil stain on the side of his face. He pets DUM-E, stroking the robot's claw and playing fetch with it, and then taking an old model of a StarkPhone and excitedly taking it apart. He creates his own little drone, a little spider made of bits and pieces that he'd found in the ancient remains of a computer from some thrift shop, and the little thing chirrups excitedly next to Peter as he feeds bits of webbing into a little canister, rambling all the while. _

 

He brings out the little broken pieces of himself like it's show and tell, pulls himself apart until he's exposed and vulnerable, everything clenched as he bares each piece of his soul that he's lost, each little bit of the world that had been snapped out of existence, and forces the stones to fix it. He brings up the image of everybody happy, everybody alive and breathing and _there_ , and he floods his being with the hope.

 

_You took my family._

 

The stones thrum, almost heating up against his burning skin. It's an acknowledgement, almost an apology, but an acknowledgement isn't what he wants, what he needs, so he clenches his hands into fists and forces the damned rocks to listen.

 

_Bring them back._

 

_(The thing is, we are all negative space. Our existence is only as real as the things that surround us; we are only facets of a reality that hinges less on ourselves and more on the effects that we have on others. When Thanos destroyed half the universe, he carved empty spaces in reality, scars in the fragile framework of the world. When Thanos dusted trillions without a thought - he forgot that matter is energy - energy that now resides, thrumming and tense, in an unbalanced world with nowhere to go. )_

 

Tony watches as the shifting masses of color around him collapse, flashing bright like a dying star, before his world fades to black.

 

\---

 

Steve looks up and he's back in Wakanda.

 

He knows this clearing intimately. Every night, it surrounds him as he watches, helpless, as Bucky falls, as he loses his best friend over and over and over again. For a moment, he thinks that he is trapped once again in a nightmare, doomed to relive Bucky's death over and over, before he realizes that he has blood staining the side of his suit from a claw that managed to rip through his defenses, that the trees are a bit taller, a bit livelier, and that he is sweaty, tired, and alone.

 

"Steve?"

 

He whirls back, ready to watch the stupid dream play out again, angry desperation coloring his face at the reminder that he has failed, once again, but Bucky stands there behind him and doesn't fade. He steps forwards, takes a slow but solid step towards Steve's direction, and then another, and in a whirl of time and motion they're pressed against each other, Steve wrapped tightly in Bucky's arms. Tears stream from his eyes, as he shakes and pulls them to the ground, listening through his choking sobs of relief and shuddery breaths to Bucky's heartbeat. Thankfully, he doesn't protest, just curls tighter around Steve in a way that makes him feel like the scrawny kid from Brooklyn all over again, until their breaths steady, safe and alive on Earth.

 

Steve opens his mouth, overwhelmed with a need to say all the words that he couldn't get out before, but they get stuck in his throat. "You-you're here," he manages, still a little bit disbelieving, still half expecting to wake up to an empty room, an empty life. Steve Rogers had always been a soldier - always a fighter; at every turn he was pulling his hands into fists to protect those that couldn't protect themselves. He can hear the faint whoops of joy as Wakandan soldiers reform around him, and a sort of lightness floods through him as he realizes, that finally, his fight is over. Bucky is fond as he looks at him, his eyes misty.

 

"What'd I say, punk? I'm here with you till the end of the line, remember?"

 

_(The thing is, lines don't end. They stretch their arms out to infinity, always reaching but never there, hoping that somehow they can encompass the world in a symphony that never reaches its finale. The thing is, in the end, Bucky and Steve will always be intertwined, always exist in conjunction with one another - the thing is, they're legends. And legends never die.)_

 

\---

 

Rhodey runs through the trees, his faceplate flicked up, passing by trees and people in whirlwinds of color and motion. Tony had put on the gauntlet, there had been a flash of white, and then he'd been in Wakanda, the same place that he'd been at the end of the battle - when everybody had turned to dust. He hears a rustle, and sprints towards it, looking for anything that'd help him figure out what the hell had happened when-

 

"Sam?"

 

It's strange, almost like watching the dusting process but in reverse; particles swirl together and then Sam's lying down in front of him, a confused look on his face as he struggles to his feet.

 

_(Rhodey had made a promise to himself, before facing Thanos again. Sam died alone. He'd do anything, everything, in his power to make sure that he wouldn't be alone if he came back)_

 

"Colonel Rhodes? What's going on?"

 

Rhodey doesn't even realize that he's laughing until he hears the victorious yelling all around him, because somehow, somewhere, Tony's done the impossible.

 

"We won, Sam."

 

_We won._

\---

 

Shuri's in her workshop, frantically trying to bring up communication after some sort of energy blast managed to cut the Avengers off. Her systems are flashing warnings all around her, and she curses under her breath because of _course_ , the idiotvengers would manage to short out her technology when doing so should be impossible, of course they'd manage to cut off the comms at the most inconvenient moment and leave her uninformed and alone in her lab, of course things wouldn't go as they should.

 

After the snap, Shuri had been the next in line for the throne, and she had half a mind to deny her role as queen. The thing is, at her core, she was an innovator, a scientist - not a leader. While she worked behind the scenes to make sure everything went right _(and look at how well she did that, her mind whispers)_ , she let the rest of her family take their place in front of the people, supporting them and bolstering their courage. But before she could abandon the responsibility, dump the burden from her shoulders and turn away without looking back, she had to hold the pleading, grieving gaze of Wakanda.

 

_(Her brother had told her, once, with a heavy gaze and faraway eyes in a voice that sounded almost like her father, that a good leader had to do what was best for their people.)_

 

They needed her. They needed stability - as a nation missing half of its population, its leader _(again)_ , and both its strength and spirit, they needed somebody to pull them through the darkness. She couldn't stand by and watch, couldn't let them lose both their current leader and any hope for another one, couldn't leave them to fend for themselves, alone. So she had stepped forward, raising her eyes to the heavens, hoping that Bast _(and her brother, her dad - everyone she had lost)_ would be there, protecting her.

 

_(She looked at her people, shoulders back, head high - trying to hide the hands that shook at her sides and the tears that pooled in her eyes.)_

 

The systems remained down, and she pulled at a lock of her hair with her hand - watching the holoscreen as she worked to find a signal. She's so focused that she almost doesn't notice another screen popping up from behind her. In fact, she pays it no attention at all until-

 

"Suit: Jared version 19.0 online. Current user: T'challa - Black Panther, king of Wakanda. "

 

She whirls around, hair whipping behind her and coming around to slap against her face. The screen remains stubbornly up, showing the last suit that she had made, the one that had been destroyed _(with her brother in it)_ , a list of vitals displayed right next to it. She watches the heartrate as it jumps to 160 bpm and then as it drifts back down to 100, watches the blood pressure readings (normal, maybe a little low), the thousand different tests and failsafes that all confirm that the user is her _(dead, he's dead he's gone)_ older brother. As she watches, frozen in the middle of her lab, an alert comes up in the middle. A call.

 

_(She shouldn't answer.)_

 

"This is Shuri."

 

_(She does.)_

 

"Shuri? Is my suit seriously named after one of those vine things that you wanted to show me?"

 

She laughs, watery and broken but real, and lets herself collapse against the ground. A hologram of her brother stands in front of her, looking concerned in a way that only he could be, and his face sends her into another fit of giggles that she can't stop.

 

She brings up a hand to wipe away the tears flowing down her face, fully aware of the dopey smile that she has on her face. "I don't know what you're talking about, brother. Now when will our king come back to pick up his slack?"

 

_(The thing is, Shuri may never had been made to be a queen, but she was always meant to be a sister.)_

\---

 

Before she opens her eyes, Wanda feels joy.

 

It's this, more than anything, that makes her move from where she is. Though her powers were more related to the physical world than that of an empath, she's still more in tune to people's emotions than most are normally. It's this that allowed her to play on people's fears for Ultron, and before everything had gone dark after Thanos, she could feel a wave of grief and fear rolling over the earth and sweeping through the universe. Now, everything feels different - instead of the bitter clawing cold that came from the combined pain and sorrow of trillions, there's a kind of warmth curling in her chest, light and almost like love against her ribcage. With the help of the happiness surrounding her, she lets her head lift from where it had been bowed from the weight of loss against her chest.

 

She pulls her hair from her face, and meets Vision's eyes.

 

"Wanda," he whispers, saying her name with a sort of reverence usually reserved for prayer, and her hand moves without thinking, pulling up to trace the line of his jaw. His forehead is unmarred by the mind stone, and with his cheek pressed against her palm she can feel his quiet serenity, nothing like the anguish that he had been in before his death.

 

"Viz."

 

Her powers curl around her, scarlet winds wrapping like a blanket around the two of them, pulling his body closer to hers. He cups her face carefully, wiping tears that have begun to fall from her eyes with the edge of his thumb. He pulls her into a kiss, soft and a little desperate, and she lets her fingers trace the back of his neck, her world feeling just a little more right again.

 

\---

 

Clint wasn't ok.

 

Not that anybody was ok, these days. After Thanos, the concept of ok shifted completely, turning something like "fine" into "amazing" and "bad" into "manageable." But whereas everyone else kind of survived from day to day, Clint mostly just drifted, broken in a way he couldn't express.

 

Nat understood, at least. She could look at him from across the room, slip a hand into his during debriefs, and there would come the momentary comfort of companionship, of not being alone. And though he couldn't tell exactly, there was something in Tony's eyes that made him think that he understood his grief too.

 

_(How many kids has Clint lost now? One or two?  Two or three? How many will he have to lose until the world decides that it has had enough?)_

 

But there was more than just loss haunting his every step. Death, and all of its pain, was as hard as it always was, but still manageable. Clint could do loss. He could grit his teeth and barrel his way through it as he always had, close his eyes and brace against the pain. But there was no easy solution for the guilt that wracked his insides, day after day. Nothing to stop the relentless torrents of "what if's," nothing to prevent the blame and self-deprecation that would send him to the floor.

 

His kids deserved a dad that was there; his wife deserved a husband who she could lean on. He had realized that far, far too late.

 

Lila and Cooper and the team were the only things that kept him going. The thirst for some sort of revenge, the need to take care of his kids, the only things he had left, the family of broken people with broken families that the Avengers had somehow become. Besides them he had nothing. He was nothing.

 

He blinks, and Thanos is gone.

 

He's at his farm. Lila's sitting at the table, where she had been doing her homework before the snap. Nathaniel is tucked in his side, and he's holding the same ratty picture book that he had been obsessed with before they moved to the Compound. He stands up a little too quickly, and Nathaniel squirms, whines falling from his lips. He still has his bow with him, an arrow in his hand, so he puts it back as not to blow anything up and watches, waits for whatever bombshell is to be dropped on him this time.

 

Something moves in the corner of his eye, so he draws an arrow and has it pointed at the intruder before he turns around to look. His heart thumps in his head and his hand shakes minutely, but he keeps the dead, emotionless mask on that he always needs for battle.

 

"Dad?"

 

It's Cooper. He's just as he remembers, hair short and scruffy, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. He falters, looking at his son's eyes that mirror his own, shaking more now, but he doesn't fade. Doesn't collapse into dust.

 

"Dad, what's going on?"

 

Clint's not unused to hallucinations. After Thanos, he had been through more than a few grief-induced visions, be it of Laura or Cooper, Wanda or Pietro, ones that Nat had to drag him through in the middle of the night. But none of them have felt this real, none have them felt so clear as for him to feel the slight breeze threading through his hair, to watch the fear that flickers behind the mask of concern on his son's face. The bow drops to the floor.

 

_(Good job Clint. You've actually lost it this time.)_

 

"You're not real."

 

Somehow, Cooper's face softens. "No, dad. I'm real. I promise." From behind him, he can hear Lila's shocked gasp, the pap-pap-pap of Nathaniel's hands clapping against each other. He hears Laura's voice, soft with a hint of steel before it is drowned out by the excited yells of his kids, and for a moment the room doesn’t feel as empty. He steps forwards, and his son takes his hand. There are tears in his eyes.

 

"I missed you, dad."

 

Clint isn't ok. But he pulls his son to his chest anyways, memorizing the feeling of his chest rising and falling with each breath, the rhythm of his heartbeat as it pulses against his hand, and immerses himself with the warmth of family.

 

"I missed you too, buddy."

 

_(The thing is, the world may take from him over and over and over again until there's only the breath in his body and the dust on the ground, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to do everything to get them all back.)_

 

\---

 

Dust.

 

_(Mr. Stark, just count to five. Breathe.)_

 

Tony's eyes fly open, and he vomits bile into the dirt as he turns himself over on all fours, bracing his hands against the ground. His breaths are heavy, panting gasps, and he's never felt more like Atlas, the weight of the world crushing against his back and squeezing the air from his lungs. There's no one here, not FRIDAY not Jarvis not Peter not even Shuri, so he stares at the reddish earth and schools his breaths back, one count at a time.

 

_(One.)_

 

He stands up. His mask had been drawn back automatically when he first woke up, but without it he feels strangely vulnerable. It takes a moment, but as he reaches a hand to rub at his left shoulder without thinking, the lack of pain stops him in his tracks. The familiar numbness, pins-and-needles feeling that was usually like static right under the skin of his left arm had faded into nothingness, and as his breaths began to steady, he realized that the ever-present ache in his chest that had never left him since Afghanistan has disappeared as well.

 

_(Two.)_

 

The air is clouded with dust and ash, suspended in the air as to catch the sun all around him. The smells and sounds come back to him all at once, a whirlwind of action and voices and emotion that nearly sends him crashing to the ground once more. It is only the thoughts of the battle that keep him on his feet, but there is nothing around him, no outriders, no Chitauri, no Thanos. There is only Tony and the suffocating air of Titan.

 

_(Three.)_

 

Alone, he walks forward, his footfalls loud and yet silent to the increasing cacophony in his brain. His boot meets something on the ground with a clang, and he freezes; looking down, the Infinity Gauntlet lies empty on the ground. The gold is covered in grime and the cuffs are completely destroyed, far from the unblemished state it had been in before the war began. It hardly looks like the weapon that it had been to take down the avengers, tear the universe in half, take his family away from him.

 

_(Four.)_

 

A sudden wind rushes across the surface of the planet, and his head snaps up as swirling masses of dust are whipped up into the air. Dread settles rock hard in his stomach, and he can feel it rising up to his lungs, feel it like poison coursing through his veins, feel it like shrapnel worming its way towards his heart. He raises his hand and waits, staring at it because he _knows,_ knows that he's failed and that he will be lost to the universe the same way _Peter-_

 

Something moves in the corner of his eye.

 

He turns around, eyes frantic, and with a lurch particles swirl together and form the idiot from Missouri, Peter _(but not his Peter),_ who loses his footing, almost falling on his face before regaining some semblance of balance.

 

There's more, all around him, the motley crew from the first time where they failed, but all Tony can hear is his own heartbeat because it isn't real, it can't be real, things don't just _work out_ , especially because he is Tony Stark, and was doomed from the beginning to always lose, to have everything taken away from him-

 

"Dad, just count to five. Breathe."

 

_(Five.)_

 

He turns around, and Peter stares back.

 

" _Peter._ "

 

He looks like he's holding things together about as well as Tony is, but a crooked smile breaks out on his face that he hasn’t seen in far, far too long. His hair is curly and a little messy, and Tony wants to pull his kid in and thread his fingers through the locks, breathe in Peter and finally feel complete again. He can feel a tear falling down the right side of his face and doesn't care.

 

"I knew you could do it, Mr. Stark." Peter's eyes are bright, even though Tony can see the slight tremors of anxiety tracing their way up and down his arms. Warmth swells in his chest; even in the endless darkness of space, his kid shines brighter than the sun.

 

There are a thousand words that he wants to say. His dreams haunt him with what he never told his kid, things he'd tell him if he ever came back. There are the _damn it kid, never do that to me again you're going to give me an aneurysm_ 's or the _I'm so sorry that I couldn't save you_ 's and most of all _I love you so much Peter, I love you and I want you to never forget that_ but now, with him only a few feet in front of him, the words get stuck in his throat.

 

Somehow, the kid understands, because he steps closer and then they're on the ground, limbs tangled together with Peter's face tucked in the crook of his neck, and he knows that he's sobbing, ugly thick things into the air with people surrounding him but it doesn't matter. Peter's hair is soft against his neck, and his arms encircle Tony's torso and neck just a little too tightly. It's perfect.

 

After what might be a minute or might be an hour, they break apart, and Peter's face simmers down to what may have construed as a serious expression were it not for the twinkle in his eye and the subtle upwards twitch of the right corner of his eye.

 

"There's just one problem, Mr. Stark." His face breaks out in a shit-eating grin, and Tony feels his own face cracking into an exasperatedly fond smile. "There aren't any doors for you to open."

 

 _His kid._ "I guess we're there, then, huh?"

 

Somehow, Peter's face manages to get even brighter, and Tony can feel his heart swelling at the pure unadulterated joy from his expression. He thinks back to when he had been just Tony Stark with no family to speak of, bitter and afraid and alone in a cave in the desert. He thinks back to a time where he didn't think there was anything beyond the bots and his lab, beyond fake smiles and fake joy and fake hopes. Tony looks at Peter, and he thinks about how there's no faking this, there's no faking the warmth against his ribs when he looks at the team, at Happy, at Rhodey and Pepper and Peter, no faking the laughter bubbling in his chest where there used to be only emptiness and an arc reactor keeping him alive, and no faking the dreams that dare show him something beyond alien invasions and hostages, that dare give him a family. He thinks about how he never thought it was possible to love someone this much.

 

_(The thing is, they were always there. It just took a couple years for Tony to realize that.)_

 

Tony smiles. This time, it feels more right than it has ever felt before.

 

"Yeah, we're there, kid." Peter laughs.

 

"Course we are." Peter leans into Tony's side. At some point, their armor had retracted so it was just them on Titan, watching the stars twinkle in the distance. This time, the endless void doesn't scare him. "You're my dad."

 

\---

 

The thing is, the world comes back.

 

People welcome back their families, their friends, their lovers. They laugh over the sticky-sweet taste of marshmallows roasted over an open fire, climb out in the middle of the night to dance on rooftops. They wear sweaters that are too large and cover up the bottom half of their hands while sipping tea tucked in the corner of a library, scramble and weave under playground equipment with shrieks and giggles. They cry and they panic and they hurt, yes, but beyond that they laugh, they heal, they hope and they love.

 

_(This is the way that all things should be.)_

 

The Avengers sit in silence, watching the horizon. Ribbons of light fall over their faces, hazy bands of gold lining their clothing as the light spills out into the darkness.

 

The sun rises.

 

The thing is, it feels like a new tomorrow.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay i finished something longer than a oneshot
> 
> it's a twoshot, but progress??? i guess????
> 
> so have this pile of, uh, words, and i hope you enjoy it? please leave a comment or kudos if you want - it'd mean the world to me! constructive criticism (look at all those to be verbs jesus c h r i s t) is always appreciated.
> 
> my [tumblr](https://marvelwhatthefuck.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ALSO!! Requests are open! I'm not the best at writing romantic relationships, but feel free to request them. As you can (probably) tell, I'm the best at writing Irondad, so any prompts about that would be amazing. Besides that, I'll still retain the right to deny any prompt in case of anything I forgot, and more info can be found [here](https://marvelwhatthefuck.tumblr.com/post/178162308674/requests-open). 
> 
> thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> heyooooo kudos and comments give me life
> 
> ;sljfa f if you read this mess i am supremely grateful


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